Measure Theory Conjecture

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While I was doing some math here, I made this conjecture.

Let $f_n:X\rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ be a sequence of measurable functions from the measure space $(X,\mathcal{A},\mu)$ to the measurable space $(\mathbb{R},\mathcal{B}(\mathbb{R}))$, and let $\mu:\mathcal{A}\rightarrow[0,\infty]$ be a positive measure. Consider that for all $\varepsilon > 0$, the sets $A_n = \{x\in X: \ |f_n(x)| > \varepsilon\}$ are such that $$\limsup_{n\to\infty}\mu(A_n) = 0.$$ Then its true that $f_n\to0$, $\mu$-almost everywhere.

The thing is, I think it is true but I don't know how to prove it. You can consider $\mu$ as a probability measure if it makes more easier to prove.

Thank you.

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The property you have named is called "convergence in measure":

We say that ${f_n}$ converges to ${f}$ in measure if, for every ${\epsilon > 0}$, the measures $\mu( \{ x \in X: |f_n(x) - f(x)| \geq \epsilon \} )$ converge to zero as $n \rightarrow \infty$. (source)

In particular, assuming you mean $A_n = \{x \in X \; : \; |f_n(x)| > \epsilon\}$, your conjecture can be restated as

If $f_n : X \to \mathbb{R}$ are functions such that $f_n \to 0$ in measure, must it be true that $f_n \to 0$ $\mu$-almost everywhere?

(Note that you use $\limsup$ and the definition of convergence in measure uses $\lim$, but the two are equivalent since the measure is nonnegative.)

In general your conjecture is false. However, a weaker statement is true: there must exist a subsequence of $f_n$ which converges to $0$ $\mu$-almost everywhere.

Counterexample to your conjecture as stated

The idea is to make $f_n$ equal to $1$ on a smaller and smaller set, so that $\mu(A_n) \to 0$, but to make those smaller and smaller sets jump around enough so that $f_n(x)$ is $1$ infinitely often for any $x$.

Consider $X = \mathbb{R}$ with Lebesgue measure, and define following sequence of functions: $$ \chi_{[0,1]}, \chi_{[0,1/2]}, \chi_{[1/2,1]}, \chi_{[0,1/3]}, \chi_{[1/3,2/3]}, \chi_{[2/3,1]}, \chi_{[0,1/4]}, \ldots $$

Then for any $\epsilon > 0$, $\mu(A_n) \to 0$ because it is the sequence $1, 1/2, 1/2, 1/3, 1/3, 1/3, \ldots$. So $f_n \to 0$ in measure. However, $f_n$ does not approach $0$ for any $x \in [0,1]$, so $f_n$ does not converge to the zero function almost everywhere.

Proof that some subsequence of $\boldsymbol{f}_\boldsymbol{n}$ converges almost everywhere to $\boldsymbol{0}$

Proof. Let $f_n \to f$ in measure; we want to show a subsequence of $f_n$ converges to $f$ pointwise almost everywhere. For any $k$, let $E_{n,k}$ be the set of points where $\left|f_n - f\right| > \frac{1}{k}$. For a fixed $k$, convergence in measure implies $\mu(E_{n,k}) \to 0$.

For each $i$, choose an integer $n_i$ so that $n_i$ is an increasing sequence of integers, and $\mu(E_{n_i, i}) < \frac{1}{2^i}$. Notice that this means $\mu(E_{n_i, k}) < \frac{1}{2^i}$ for $k \le i$ since $E_{n_i, k} \subset E_{n_i, i}$ when $k \le i$.

Now consider the set $E$ of points $x$ where $f_{n_i}(x) \not \to f(x)$. We have $f_{n_i}(x) \not \to f(x)$ if and only if there is some $k$ such that $\left|f_{n_i}(x) - f(x) \right| > \frac1k$ infinitely often. Therefore, $$ E = \bigcup_{k=1}^\infty \bigcap_{N=1}^\infty \bigcup_{i=N}^\infty E_{n_i,k} $$ So \begin{align*} \mu(E) &\le \sum_{k =1}^\infty \mu \left( \bigcap_{N=1}^\infty \bigcup_{i=N}^\infty E_{n_i,k} \right) \\ &\le \sum_{k =1}^\infty \lim_{N \to \infty} \mu \left( \bigcup_{i=N}^\infty E_{n_i,k} \right) \\ &\le \sum_{k=1}^\infty \lim_{N \to \infty} \sum_{i=N}^\infty \mu(E_{n_i,k}) \\ &= \sum_{k=1}^\infty {\lim_{N \to \infty \atop N \ge k}} \sum_{i=N}^\infty \mu(E_{n_i,k}) \\ &\le \sum_{k=1}^\infty {\lim_{N \to \infty \atop N \ge k}} \sum_{i=N}^\infty \mu(E_{n_i,i}) \quad \quad \text{(since } k \le i \text{)} \\ &\le \sum_{k=1}^\infty {\lim_{N \to \infty \atop N \ge k}} \sum_{i=N}^\infty \frac{1}{2^{i}} \\ &= \sum_{k=1}^\infty (0) = 0\\ \end{align*}

Therefore, $f_{n_i} \to f$ pointwise outside the set $E$ of measure $0$. $\square$